It is the distant future. This pharmacy in What-Used-to-be-Illinois has been taken over by a group of insurgent cultists who worship various pharmaceutical products. 

During the course of the twenty-first century, conventional religious practice slowly lost its appeal and credibility. The natural world has been pretty much wrecked by humankind’s attempts at further advancement—looking into the stars for purpose has become pretty difficult on account of the fact that in most major civilized areas, the stars are usually obscured by a few layers of smog. Atmospheric sediment. The ghosts of things we should’ve been much more careful with.

In lieu of the greater universe, many begin looking towards their immediate surroundings; homegrown cults begin to form around random household objects and capital products. All sorts of things which we now consider mundane pick up this profound philosophical gravity: chocolate, fruit, movie franchises, piano benches, civil war memorabilia. All sorts of things. Far and beyond, however, the most prominent subjects of this new-age surge of religious fanaticism are unfortunately stimulants or depressants: drugs, alcohol — products which have always enacted some power over the human will naturally gather the most disastrous and unhinged religious following. 

Pictured here are a few of the guys in the midwest’s largest self-proclaimed “pharmaceutical cult.” The medication(s) they worship are swapped out on a regular basis, chosen seemingly at random by their leader, who spends all hours of the day locked in a hermetic chamber in the pharmacy’s basement. His real name is unknown but he doesn’t speak regularly and only responds to loud noises and sudden movements so most people refer to him and address him via his most recent guttural noise and/or noisy hand gesture. The last noise he made was something like “eRT” so that’s what people are calling him right now.

On most nights, clapping and screaming can be heard echoing off the parking lot concrete. He is a very powerful man and they are a very dangerous group of people.